News tagged with optical instruments

Ever wonder why stars seem to twinkle? This effect is caused by variations in the density of our atmosphere that cause blurring in light coming from space. It's pretty for stargazing, but a challenge for space-to-ground communications.

3D printing offers engineers various ways to construct hardware that simply could not be built in any other manner – such as this single-piece casing to house an optical instrument for Earth observations.

What if you could reach through a microscope to touch and feel the microscopic structures under the lens? In a breakthrough that may usher in a new era in the exploration of the worlds that are a million times smaller than ...

(Phys.org) —Assembly of the backbone of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the primary mirror backplane support structure, is a step closer to completion with the recent addition of the backplane support frame, a fixture ...

(Phys.org) —A team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star. With an estimated mass of four to five times that of Jupiter, it would be the least massive planet ...

(Phys.org) —With this new view of a spectacular stellar nursery ESO is celebrating 15 years of the Very Large Telescope—the world's most advanced optical instrument. This picture reveals thick clumps of dust silhouetted ...

In a project commissioned by the European Space Agency, researchers at the University of Twente have developed a novel cooling technique for optical detectors on spacecraft. Using this technology, it is possible to detect ...

(Phys.org)—Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have obtained what is likely the first direct observation of a forming planet still embedded in a thick disc of gas and dust. If confirmed, this discovery will greatly ...

(Phys.org)—"Big Red" isn't a golden retriever or a NASA engineer, it's the nickname for a small chamber that helps ensure equipment can withstand very cold temperatures that would be experienced in space.

Optical communications, or photonics, technology has failed to match the miniaturization of electronic components, mainly because of fundamental laws of classical optics. The smallest photonic devices are limited to sizes ...